So why is the Raspberry Pi foundation, the organization behind this charming device, making the computers in the first place?

We spoke with Eben Upton, executive director of the Raspberry Pi foundation to find out why. Here's what we learned:

It's primarily intended for the education market. The whole idea was conceived as a way to get kids to learn how to manipulate and program computers earlier on.
The Raspberry Pi foundation wants to open-source the
technology so "a company in China can produce a million computers" for
developing countries and schools. The foundation expects third parties to start developing Raspberry Pi devices midway through 2012.